‘I want a big life’: Amputee basketball player’s journey from KwaMashu to France

Double leg amputee Sphelele Dlamini plays wheelchair basketball games in France like he approaches life: with an intense determination to make the most of every single chance he gets.

The 29-year-old, who was born in KwaMashu, KwaZulu-Natal, has now spent the last three years playing wheelchair basketball with French teams.

He tells me he likes to play on the offensive “because I’m able to create more opportunities for my teammates to score”.

“I’m good at that,” he says, adding: “There is a feeling I get when I am playing wheelchair basketball that is hard to explain. I get to forget about the challenges that I may be facing. It gives me freedom in life because when you are playing with people that also have disabilities, it motivates you to see that there are always opportunities to overcome the obstacles you face on the court.”

He pauses.

“It also gives us hope, to say we can overcome the obstacles we face in our lives. We can do something bigger too”.

Before Dlamini started playing wheelchair basketball, he tells me: “I never thought that I could have been something or being somebody in this world, that I would have a family of my own”.

“The message in the environment that I come from is not always positive about being a disabled person. You don’t really see many examples of disabled people in my community who have been successful. But when I started playing sport, and connecting with other sports people with disabilities, it pushed me to try for a better life”, he says.

Dlamini’s legs were amputated when he was a baby after doctors noticed that they were not growing in the correct position.

“From the beginning, I was never seen as a kid that has a disability and I was always treated like I was a kid who could do anything,”